SKT Collaborates with Global Untact Startups on 5G·MEC

[Asia Economy Reporter Seolgina Jo] SK Telecom announced on the 11th that it has completed the selection of five startups with promising technologies and businesses for the ‘post-COVID-19’ era and plans to explore joint business opportunities with these companies until next year.

In June, SK Telecom called for promising companies in North America and Asia to jointly develop non-face-to-face services through TEAC, a global partner discovery and cooperation program. A total of 63 companies from 19 countries participated in the call. ‘TEAC’ is a startup collaboration program under TIP, an alliance established in 2016 by global ICT companies including SK Telecom, Facebook, Intel, Nokia, and Deutsche Telekom to develop next-generation communication infrastructure.

After a two-month selection process, five companies were finally selected: ▲ Kiswe (USA), a non-face-to-face live concert streaming company ▲ Dabeeo (Korea), which has an indoor positioning solution using AI analysis ▲ Seadronix (Korea), which provides a ship docking monitoring solution based on AI vision analysis ▲ 39degC (Korea), a multi-camera live broadcasting company ▲ Neubility (Korea), a company offering vision-based route analysis and autonomous driving software solutions for delivery robots in the last-mile segment.

SK Telecom plans to support the selected companies by providing on-site channels and technology development so they can test their technologies and services using SK Telecom’s core infrastructure such as 5G, MEC (Mobile Edge Computing), and media.

Specifically, SK Telecom will support 5G technology for uploading performance data to help ‘Kiswe’ enhance its live streaming platform for non-face-to-face K-PoP concerts. It will also open 5G and MEC infrastructure to ‘Seadronix,’ which has an AI vision analysis-based ship docking monitoring solution, to support the implementation of services that provide risk and safety information for large ships docking at ports. With ‘Dabeeo,’ which has an indoor positioning solution using AI analysis, SK Telecom plans to utilize 5G and MEC infrastructure to offer AR games based on indoor location for museum visitors and provide docent services by identifying the current location of exhibition visitors.

SK Telecom held a kickoff meeting for full-scale activities on the 8th via video conferencing solutions together with Deutsche Telekom, TIP, Facebook, Telefonica, Vodafone, and others. Deutsche Telekom, which operates TEAC Germany, also selected five contactless startups in Europe, similar to SK Telecom.

Ha Hyung-il, Head of SK Telecom’s Corporate 2 Center, said, “We will prepare for the post-COVID-19 era by jointly discovering business opportunities with promising startups in 5G and MEC,” adding, “We will support strong innovative companies to grow rapidly through cooperation with global partners.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.